Parabola
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: When he walked out of the tent, she followed... Ron and Hermione


When he walked out of the tent, she followed

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and would never dream of trying to make money off of it.**

**A/N:** It's practically been a year since DH came out and I've been sitting on this story for almost as long. There was just too much I wanted to say about Ron and Hermione and I had to comfort myself with what I wrote here. Hope someone likes it. **During DH (is there still such a thing as spoilers?), Hermione's POV, third person, Ron and Hermione more than just implied**. Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

i

When he walked out of the tent, she followed.

She bellowed his name out into the night and the rain swallowed it whole. She screamed, again and again, walked beyond the guarded borders that made up their universe for the time being, and she half expected to see him there, sitting on one overturned rock or another, with a cross expression on his stupid face, waiting to be talked back in. Because that was what Ron Weasley did. He muddled things up, he made countless stupid mistakes that stung and bruised but at the end of the day, at the end of the day he was still Ron Weasley and he pulled through. When it counted, when it didn't, he pulled through.

But then he walked out of the tent and she followed, and he wasn't anywhere to be found.

ii

She cried for a week after he left—she couldn't stop it, it was like a bad habit, except that she couldn't run her tears down to the quick or bite them to ribbons—and Harry never said a word. And then, finally, on the seventh day, he put his arm around her, carefully. And if it was meant to comfort her, it didn't, because she was so acutely aware of the weight of his arm around her shoulders, the weight he had to carry now with a little less help and all she could do was cry harder.

She didn't cry in front of Harry after that.

iii

She was sure she was going to die.

It was the unsettled feeling of finality she had been swallowing since she'd sent her parents to Australia. The knowing that _this was it_— she was Hermione Granger after all and knowing was what she did best, even away from Hogwarts. Harry was sinking fast to floor and the snake hissed from the shadows and she couldn't do anything but wait for the green (have you gone mad? Are you a witch or not?). She pulled her wand, not thinking as the words spilled out of her mouth, then there was glass and pain and fear and the finality of it all so close she could feel it like the lump in her throat—and at least he was not there to die with them—then she threw them out the window and into the night.

iv

She half-dragged Harry into the clearing; cast the wards before she stopped to check on him again.

He was hot, impossible hot, tossing and jerking, movement rapid beneath his eyes, shivers trapped just beneath the clammy skin under her hand. She pried the broken halves of his wand from his fist and prayed (and if she ever hated Ron Weasley, it was then).

vi

He was slopping wet and pale—she could count every freckle on his face if she wanted to—and he held his arms open at his side. Waiting for her.

She could have wept openly then, but she beat him instead, a fist-fall for wasted nights of prayers and tears and hatred that stained her soul like that locket did his. She hit him, again and again. For leaving Harry. For trying to make her choose, for leaving her—because she would never leave Harry, her brother, her friend, not even for this boy who she'd picked for herself—for making her worry and making her cry. She hit him for coming back and expecting everything to be fine. She hit him because she was alive and he was alive and now they could die together.

vii

When she's certain that she's going to die—Bellatrix raised her wand again and again and Hermione couldn't hear herself screaming anymore, couldn't connect with anything—she regretted things.

She regretted that her parents would never mourn her and that Harry and Ron would. She regretted the last nasty word she said and that she'd been stupid enough to let them out of the wards for so long. She hated that she was going to die.

And of all the selfish thoughts she'd ever had, those were the worse.

viii

His eyes were wet—the candlelight was dim and everything hurt so terribly she couldn't help but wonder if there was a second scar now, over the first upon her heart—and she'd never seen him cry before then. She remembered the feeling of his face, wet and hot against the top of her head at the funeral the year before, but this was different. This was Ron Weasley with worry lines and frown lines and lines she'd been responsible for.

His hands were shaking, hovering more than touching any one part of her, and she vaguely realized he was afraid. And it was ridiculous, how boyish he looked, his lips bitten to ribbons, his eyes too wide and dark, like he was waiting for a reprimand for stealing a sweet before dinner. But his eyes met hers and the shadows changed, made the angle of his cheek harsh—too sharp to be the soft faced boy who split pumpkin pasties with her—and his eyes were dangerous and hollow, as though his skin were stretched too skin, and he didn't know how to wear it. She moved her hand, lifted her palm towards him and his shoulders sagged as he slipped his own into it. His hands were a horrid mess. Scraped raw, the skin of his palms hot and bloodied in her own, the knuckles split open, red welts half formed around his wrist.

"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice the imitation of sound, and his face crumbled. He toppled towards her, and his forehead feverish and damp where it met her bare arm. His shoulder trembled and the only sound she could make out was the rushed whisper of his apology.

And it was terrible, that she'd never loved him more than she did than, when everything seemed impossible and broken and he was coming apart against her arm.

She risked movement, lifted her hand to his ginger hair—it felt dirty and thick against her fingers—and tried to imagine where they were meant to go from there.

ix

He came back from burying Dobby, smelling of sweat and fresh dirt. His hand was dirty but she took it wordlessly, pressed her mouth to his split knuckle and never felt as bold as she did then.

His mouth was a curious limp bow, like he wasn't sure what to do with it, but he pressed his lips together and then bent to kiss her. It was the quiet sort of kiss she hadn't imagined he would know how to give—because he was loud and overwhelming, too much of a boy for this sort of intimacy—but he gave it freely and she felt it against her heart like she did against her lips.

x

"In case there's something down there," He said; eyes downcast into the gapping mouth of the tunnel that lead to the chambers. He lowered himself slowly, "I want to say I'm sorry. About everything. I'm sure you've kept a list somewhere so I don't need to go into detail—"And she pushed him down and almost laughed at the strangled yelp he let out when he hit the bottom.

It was something like giddiness—and how out of place, really, in the middle of a war—like possibility, like seeing the end of the tunnel after holding your breath for too long a time trying to cast a wish.

"It's safe to come down." He bellowed and she lowered herself into the dark.

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**End**

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